King Of Concrete Returns

I plan on starting this as soon as I get up and moving around today.

This will not be a very quick or easy project.

Making a sidewalk behind the house 3ft wide and about 30ft long.

I picked up some stones that I will also lay in to give it some style (quartzite and flagstone)



I got it all ready to start yesterday and right now I only have 6 1/2 bags of the 80lb version of high-strength concrete and adding some rocks and gravel from around the property.

Probably will take a month to do this

I should give you the recipe to make your own concrete, those 80lb bags dont go very far.

We'll have to get you a portable mixer, all the concrete you have been using.

Magic is gonna create an imbalance in the earth's rotation and axis because of all the tons of concrete he has concentrated in one place.


Magic!!!!


You must spread that concrete out over a greater land mass, or we're all doomed!!!

Ah it would just be more work if I used an electric mixer and even more if I had to buy sand and gravel!

Hey Mighty I used some program once to show what was on the exact opposite of the Earth from my place and it was in the middle of the ocean so it will take me a while to mix enough concrete to weigh more that that........then that ocean would just fall to the lower side of the planet again

Ok here is day one after mixing up the 6.5 bags of concrete and adding 3 stones and all the rest.......since the bird feeder is above this part they left me some bird tracks in the concrete too



Now I am trying to get the wife in the car so we can take the long drive and pick up 6 more 80lb bags of extra strength ready mix and I still have 3 stones so I can wait until the next trip.

Are the black/dark gray pcs slate?

Hope you're making sure that concrete is sloped away from the foundation.

The darker stone is flagstone and the other is quartzite

And yeah it is sloped away from the house and has a slight angle on the outside edge.

Under the weather today so I spent most of he day so far in bed

{I had to switch chairs just now)


Well just my luck it was sunny and 60 BUT a north wind from Canada that made it fucking cold and my back is stiff as a brick and hurts right now (I will visit my vicodins in a few minutes)

So I drove the Jaguar to the local building supply place and since the trunk is not very big I had them cut me 12 five footers of rebar and brought em home.

Then figured out what I could find here to use as a form to make a half-circle or concrete sticking out from the sidewalk to give it some more style and I will see how a small table will sit there (I had some extra pieces of that metal roofing from last summers project so that will make the half-circle form)

Dug out the extra dirt and rocks in that spot........by then my back was stiff and on vicodin #2

I could tell I wasn't going to do any concrete mixing today (so all 800lbs is still in the Chrysler's trunk and it looks like a Mexi-lowrider)

So I decided to just go find 5 buckets full of rock (5 gallon bucket) out in the creek since that is the best place here and hauled that over to the project and that was enough to have it ready to do about 6 feet of sidewalk and that half-circle .....maybe tomorrow if the weather is ok.

After that is done (I hope the 10 bags of 80lb concrete will do that part) and then there is about 10 more feet to finish this off

The main thing is it will still be about HALF as much concrete to do this that the 110 sixty lb bags that I used to make that concrete flower box back in 2009

I didn't show this picture from the last day I mixed up some concrete before we had cold-ass rain and wind for a week.

Today I reminded myself that mixing up 800lbs of concrete and all that goes with my typical day is not as easy as it used to be.

In fact it reminded me that I have not mixed up that much in one day since 2009

(I ran out so I need to go pick up another load)

Of course by one day I mean 4 and a half hours or so.

I better go haul some more rock because 800lbs of concrete does not get me very far on this project.

.....goodnight

Nope, premix concrete doesnt go far at all, 1 bag gives you 3ft x 3 ft, 2 inches deep..an entire cube (42 bags) doesnt get you 1 yard of concrete.

Hence why I told you to get 1/2 ton of sand 1/4 ton of pea gravel and a couple bags of straight portland, and make it yourself.

This is what I use http://reviews.homedepot.com/1999/202660567/80-lb-high-strength-concrete-mix-reviews/reviews.htm

$3.75 each and the way I am doing this is 4in thick so it is a 3ft X 2Ft X 4" for every 4 bags (80lbs) and try to add as much of the nice creek rocks and pour the concrete on top.

Cheapest and easiest way since it would be another major job shoveling sand on gravel from a couple piles somewhere in the yard and having to try to mix it to make it as nice as this concrete I use now.

I guess the reason these bags weigh 20 more lbs is the extra portland and the rocks are free and they take up lots of space without adding that to the mix.

And the way I mix is also easier than using one of those electric mixers since I never have to shovel any of this into a mixer and then pour it into a bucket to get it over to the site where I do these projects and there is no room for wheel contraptions

So I fill my roller and roll it right to the spot and dump it out and go back over to where the hose is and do it again.

Takes about 1 minute to roll it to a spot with a perfect mix and when I am done I don't have to get the sand and gravel off the lawn before I have to mow again.

I would be over at Home Depot right now picking up 8 more in my car (uses less gas than my truck) but the broad here likes to bitch and complain from the second I get up until she goes to sleep.....and never says one nice thing about all the work I do here.


I prefer silence

Raccoon during day light hours = bad news, rabid, hope you showed him the Eagle

Well I grabbed Betsy the pistol grip 12 gauge on my way out and the bastard ran off to the creek where I have that lil water fall and started running upstream and the grass is about 4ft tall on both sides so I couldn't see it so I just fired a shot to see if that would scare him next door to the hippy pig farm